Genuinely trying to find more Black people up here.

[rakoo@blah.rako.space]

@CathyBikesBook

I'm black but not american and not in the us

[cathybikesbook@mastodon.social]

@rakoo hi

[blogdiva@mastodon.social]

thank you. we’re in good company

@FediTips @CathyBikesBook @brothersoul @DivineEllison @dilmandila @cubicgarden @potterybyosa @ErickaSimone @StillIRise1963 @timnitGebru @mekkaokereke @drcaberry @alesha_peterson @futurebird @majorlinux @ZekuZelalem

[blogdiva@mastodon.social]

@CathyBikesBook @FediTips welcome to the fediverse. make yourself comfortable perusing the hashtah stream. check my bio for some of the dozens am subscribed to ―but you always have to check the cats & dogs. that’s what the internet is made of

[cathybikesbook@mastodon.social]

@blogdiva I love boosting people's pictures of their cute cats and dogs. Makes the timeline brighten.

[blogdiva@mastodon.social]

@CathyBikesBook keeps my sanity in check. people have parasocial relationships with other people. i have them with other people's pets

[cathybikesbook@mastodon.social]

@blogdiva lol. We all need some source of joy in our lives. Can't be doom and gloom all up and down the timeline.

[ratcatcher@beige.party]

@CathyBikesBook

I was going to suggest @Jaden3@mastodon.social but it looks like his account is gone.

[gunchleoc@mastodon.scot]

@grb090423 @ApostateEnglishman @CathyBikesBook @potterybyosa Jaden's profile is gone https://mastodon.social/@Jaden3

[cathybikesbook@mastodon.social]

@ratcatcher yeah a few other people suggested him and mentioned that they had t seen him up here in a while

[ratcatcher@beige.party]

@CathyBikesBook

Pity.

[grb090423@mastodon.social]

@gunchleoc @ApostateEnglishman @CathyBikesBook @potterybyosa

[growfediverse@dillyofapickle.com]

@tsyum I think they might be using ActivityPub through Peertube instead of Mastodon?

(For new folks: Peertube is the equivalent of Youtube except unlike Youtube it's able to connect to anything that uses the ActivityPub protocol, like Mastodon. Kinda like how I'm posting right now to Mastodon users from Friendica which is a Facebook equivalent.)

[erickasimone@mastodon.social]

@FediTips
Thanks for this.

[jackyan@mastodon.social]

@ratcatcher @CathyBikesBook Oh no! I really liked Jaden. Is he still posting somewhere?

[peachmcd@union.place]

@CathyBikesBook

You're on the right track with those hashtags - now just add a few excellent accounts here & join the party. Looks like others are sharing some @'s so here's some folks I like hearing from
@IveyJanette
@popcornreel
@nullagent
@TheRoot
@blogdiva
@black_intellect
@BlackAzizAnansi

ngl, there's definitely some jerques, but they're easily muted

[iveyjanette@mastodon.social]

@CathyBikesBook Welcome. I'm definitely here. Been here since 2022.

[iveyjanette@mastodon.social]

@PeachMcD @CathyBikesBook @popcornreel @nullagent @TheRoot @blogdiva @black_intellect @BlackAzizAnansi Thanks. ️

[warden@calamity.world]

@CathyBikesBook Was gonna boost this for visibility, but honestly, now I just want to browse the linked accounts in the thread.

[caroline@chaosfem.tw]

@CathyBikesBook welcome! It’s nice to see this post boosted so widely, and with so many replies.

Unfortunately that also specifically highlights one of the major problems of the Mastodon/Fediverse and a very good reason Black people don’t have a large public presence here: the lists that eager people helpfully add in reply here can easily become lists for targeted harassment of those Black folks, in DMs or public messages, and there’s no recourse but to individually block the messaging accounts every time, or (sometimes) the entire server.

I was one of those “helpful” naïve white people a few years back when this same question came up then, cheerfully opting in folks who may have had very good reasons to not reply to threads like this. My response was up for a few hours before someone did the emotional work of explaining to me why this was dangerous, and that’s a task Black folks (and women, and other historic minorities) have to do continuously with clueless white people like me on here who think there’s no racism and the Fediverse is such a welcoming place.

Honestly I think the best way is going to be using hashtags in your profile or posts (like you already did), moving to a different server (mastodon.social has such bad moderation that many servers see limited or no posts from them), and then having posts decently boosted so that people who want to connect with you will, on their own terms.

I really hope this place can become a great community space for you and that better tools continue to be developed on Fedi for that purpose. ️